My Spring Break

School resumes tomorrow, which means Spring Break is *sniff!* over. A look back at the good times...

Obviously I did a lot of reading, and some cooking with my new mini-skillet. I developed a love for grilled banana nut bread, mmmm.

We replaced the carpeting in the living room and the two smaller side rooms, eliminating the dog stains from the previous owners as well as some unpleasant odors.

 I visited with my friend Erin up in the city! One of our many adventures was painting pottery!

Lucky me, I got to take the cat to the vet to have his heart murmur checked. Sheesh. Pippin does not like the vet.

Went to Indiana to have a Good Friday dinner with parents, sister, and sister's entourage. Good eats!

Spent some serious time pulling out junk from storage in my classroom. Mr. Principal gave the okay to dispose of all of the nonsense that does not belong anymore. I've set everything out on tables to give the staff a chance to take anything they want (believe it or not, several people requested this). By the end of next week, this will all be out of my life - and my cabinets - forever!

Discovered under a bunch of thirty-year old tablecloths:

Other random highlights:
*A new Italian grocery store opened up 20 minutes from our house. Love!
*Exploring said grocery store led us to the discovery of an AMAZING Italian market and deli a few blocks down, so also 20 minutes from our house. Happy happy times!
*Ran bunches of errands that were just not achievable during school weeks.
*Reorganized several closets (having to move everything out for new carpet prompted this one).
*Spent unrushed fun times with the hubby!

And, of course, completely avoided the little bit of grading I brought home, which I must do now. All good things come to an end. : (

Reading Challenge #2 - Rebecca Caudill 2014

In addition to the US Presidential Reading Challenge Plus, I've also given myself a second reading challenge - read all twenty books on the 2014 Rebecca Caudill list. The Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award is a book award chosen by Illinois children in grades 4-8. Each year there are twenty nominations, and kids in grades 4-8 are eligible to vote for their favorite. At our school we have a program called "Book Champs;" once a kid finishes reading one of the R.C. books, they have a discussion with a teacher who has read the same book as their "proof." We weren't able to run the program this year because the 2013 books didn't come in until almost the end of the first semester (oh school library funding, how finicky thou art), but the 2014s are all in. Our school librarian recruited teacher-readers throughout parent/teacher conferences before spring break so I took one home. And then checked out three more from my public library, because they were fun books and fairly quick reads. So I'm thinking, what the heck, with four down already I can finish all twenty by August, right?

All four were enjoyable, but I would be hard-pressed to choose my favorite between "The Lions of Little Rock" and "The Running Dream." "The Running Dream" is about a high school track star who lost her right leg below the knee in a school bus accident on the way home from a meet. It details her recovery, adapting to a prosthetic, and her changed outlook on life - very thought-provoking. "The Lions of Little Rock" takes place in Little Rock in 1958, the year after the "Little Rock Nine" enrolled in Little Rock Central High School. In order to circumvent the order to integrate, the governor of Arkansas led a series of steps which led to all four public high schools in Little Rock closing their doors for the entire 1958-1959 school year. The book chronicles the friendship of a white junior high school girl and a light-skinned "colored" junior high school girl who attempted to "pass" as a white child in order to attend a white school. Excellent, excellent story showing the different perspectives of various members of that community. While I of course knew the story of the Little Rock Nine and the National Guard, etc, I didn't know anything about what happened the next year. Highly recommended read!

Experiments #3 & #4

The only thing better than a cute little cast iron pan is TWO cute little cast iron pans...

I came to realize that there are several individual dishes I am going to want to make using these, so a companion was in order. Thank you Amazon!

I have continued to break in my little guys. Last night's dinner: angel hair frittata. Sauteed mushrooms, garlic, and fresh spinach, mix in tomatoes, mozzarella, and pasta, add two eggs, set and bake - yum!

For breakfast I repeated my grilled banana nut bread deliciousness:

And finally to accompany dinner, onion/garlic/rosemary focaccia!

So obvious I am on Spring Break, isn't it? Not only do I have time to mess around with a new pan, but I'm posting about it too. Have no worries, radio darkness will descend again in a few more days...

US Presidential Reading Challenge Plus

In my quest to accomplish random nerdy things, I have begun a new reading challenge inspired by "The Hall of Presidents" at Disney World. While enjoying that attraction, I decided that I know too little about the Presidents and thus should read a biography of each of them, in order. A quick Google search will show that this is not a unique undertaking, thereby making me somewhat less of a dork. Or I suppose more of one, depending on how you look at it. Of course, school began immediately after our vacation so while still in the back of my mind I did nothing about the idea.

Then a few weeks ago I was out to brunch with a couple of friends, one of whom was extolling the virtues of the book "Mrs. Kennedy and Me," a memoir written by the head of the First Lady's Secret Service detail. At which point I decided to add the "Plus" to my reading challenge - I decided I should also read a biography of each First Lady. And perhaps actually begin reading.

And after my initial title-surfing for bios on this subject I of course discovered many other interesting reads available, so I will most likely add a third related book for each President. As we all know all good things are packaged in trilogy.

All this to say I have completed my first set of reads!

I am now 1/43rd of the way there! (Serving non-consecutive terms is not reason enough for me to read two Grover Cleveland biographies) Of course, this challenge will probably last well into the future and additional Commanders-In-Chief, so that's probably a faulty fraction. I'm okay with that.

And yes, the clip above is from an Excel chart that I created for this purpose. Don't judge.

Experiment #2

Grilled banana nut bread with peanut butter syrup. Should not be legal...

The mini cast iron skillet cooked up a great crispy outside, mmmm. Sadly, I couldn't get a decent action photo, as there are some obstacles blocking the oven at the moment.

New carpet comes today! Which means relocating furniture and the stuff that's held by the furniture to a lot of weird places. Didn't let that stop me from enjoying a new breakfast creation!

New Kitchen Toy!

I am a big fan of cast iron skillets, for savory and sweet items alike. A few examples of previous uses:

Deep dish pizza, apple pie, and smothered pork chops are a few regulars with the CIS. The last two photos, well, I enjoy posting ridiculous "customer images" for things I've purchased on Amazon. You should try it sometime, it's quite entertaining.

Anyway, one of the problems with cooking for two is that sometimes you wind up with leftovers that you either can't eat all of or shouldn't eat all of (i.e. apple pie) before they go bad, and not everything freezes particularly well. So of late I've been trying out some smaller cookware and adjusting recipes to avoid this issue. My latest smaller cookware purchase is a 6 inch cast iron skillet - it is so cute! These photos offer some perspective on its size:

The first experiment with the little skillet was banana bread.

Not gonna lie, it was a huge success! Every bit as moist and tender as when I bake it in a regular loaf pan, but only about half the size of a loaf. Very promising!

I've got a list of other items I want to try in this little guy, and since it's Spring Break I'll probably actually get around to a few of them in short order. I'll also probably get around to taking and uploading several unhelpful and unnecessary photos to Amazon as well...

March Prayer Cards

Time for teacher prayer cards again; we all certainly need a boost to get us through to Spring Break! One more week left for me! This time it's the envelopes that I'm really happy with. In another why-the-heck-didn't-I-think-of-that Pinteresting experience, it was brought to my attention that it's just stupid easy to make your own envelopes. Click here for the pin.

Here's how I made mine:

Started with this super cute cardstock pack from Michael's (I brought the obligatory 40% off coupon, but this was already half off!).

Opened up an envelope the size I wanted to make.

Traced the unfolded envelope onto the cardstock, cut out the shape.

Folded 'em up, used a little double-sided tape to secure the flaps, and there you go!

Managed to put together a nice little stack while watching the most recent episode of "The Office" from the DVR.

I wrote the addresses on labels and stuck them on, and the envelopes worked perfectly! I may never use a "real" envelope again. So disappointed I wasn't aware of this before sending out a birthday card last week (Happy Birthday again, Kelly! Pi Day birthdays rule!).

Thoughtful : )

This happened over a week ago, but the thought still makes me really happy so I deemed it worthy to share. I am not a coffee drinker, but since returning to school I have developed a once-a-week Starbucks mocha habit which keeps me alive for my Wednesday night class. Not just alive, it makes me feel AWESOME - which only reinforces my reasoning for never picking up coffee, because I've always feared becoming addicted to a morning fix. The people who sit next to me in class know this story full well, because they are witnesses to what happens when that espresso kicks in for a lightweight like me : ).

A couple of weeks ago one of my seatmates needed to figure out how to connect her iPad to the SMART Board for a presentation; none of us had ever done this before. She and I were able to figure it out after much Googling, YouTubing, and crawling on the floor and into the technology cabinet.

The next week she presented me with a lovely thank you card and a Starbucks gift card!

What a genuinely thoughtful gift, and all-around really nice thing to do! It has continued to make me smile - people like that make life wonderful!

Currently March

Another month, another Currently from Farley!

"How I Met Your Mother" - at the prompting of a co-worker back in May, I picked up this show on Netflix - I figured it was going into its last season, might as well. When they announced they would be running another season after this one, I was crushed. I want to know who the mother is and move on with my life already! But I've come this far... argghhh... (On a somewhat related note, hubby and I just finished the first season of "House of Cards" - AMAZING! Love this show, can't wait for the second season!)

Casimir Pulaski Day, a school holiday in my neck of the woods. Hooray for three day weekends! I promise you, I would work longer days four days a week to get a three-day weekend every week. Think about it: despite your best intentions, Saturday is usually a recovery day, Sunday is for grading/lesson planning/laundry/house cleaning/church/all sorts of miscellaneous chores, then boom! Back to work. With a third day you can actually get stuff done! Or, not get completely buried by a weekend getaway... : )

Another storm threat - these always disappear before hitting us. And not that I want to extend the school year, but I wouldn't snub my nose at a snow day. It's been two years since the last one, after all! Ideally, we would report for school tomorrow, run ISATs in the morning, then get sent home early... still get credit for the day, no nightmare ISAT make-ups, AND a little free time!

Grading. I don't mind the first-run stuff so much - it's all the darn make-up work!

Like/Love/Hate - I did break the rules a bit here. They were all supposed to be one word, but I couldn't (wouldn't?) do it. Dessert, mmmm. Had my first dessert this weekend since Thanksgiving weekend. I've been very good about cutting the excess sugar, but when you're at a lovely Italian restaurant, how do you turn down tiramisu? Disney World! Best vacation ever - I still think about it daily since we returned seven months ago. Daylight Savings Time in the spring means that it goes back to being pitch black when I leave the house in the morning. So much harder to get moving without natural light!

Poor Kitty

Back before we moved, when we went away for the weekend our neighbors would stop by to feed our two cats. Now that we have only one cat, we purchased one of those timed pet feeders. Ours looks pretty much like this one:

We used it for the first time when we were gone for a couple of days around Christmas, and it was great! We tried to use it on a regular basis so he wouldn't wake us up in the morning, but it turns out that when he "found" food he apparently thought that it was "bonus" food and still wanted to be fed by hand afterward. Oh well. 

So before leaving this past weekend I set it up with a couple of feedings and left it in the kitchen next to his regular food bowl, and off we went. However, when we returned, the entire container was nowhere to be found. Uh oh. We finally discovered it all the way in the dining room, where he had somehow dragged it/pushed it, and managed to flip it upside down... so it couldn't open. Poor kitty went all of Saturday and then Sunday morning with no food! Poor little guy!

So that's it for this feeder, unless we manage to find a way to attach it to the floor so he can't possibly move it. Sorry Pippin!

Weekend Part 2

Day Two of our weekend getaway! Our evening began with a romantic dinner at Volare:

We clean up fairly nicely, don't we? 

Check out this handsome guy:

This one's in honor of our niece and her friends, who seem to always be snapping mirror photos of themselves with their hands on their hips and posting them on Facebook:

Anyway, if we thought dinner was amazing, that was nothing compared to YO-YO MA! He was SPECTACULAR! If you're a fan and have never seen him live, I highly recommend the experience - a recording simply cannot compare. We were of course not permitted to take photos during the performance, so here's my 'artifact' from the evening:

We had one more breakfast at Yolk this morning, then caught the train home. Great weekend!

Hawks Win!

Every once in a while you need a getaway weekend to relax and rejuvenate - this is that weekend for me and the hubby. Last night we met up with friends we haven't spent time with since Labor Day and went to see the Blackhawks play at the United Center. Since they've been on such a hot streak I've been worried for the past week that they would lose the night we went, but thanks to an overtime goal by Seabrook their streak continued to 21! Hawks win!

Here we are:

Naturally a part of any getaway is the food; we celebrated the win with a late dinner at Lou Malnati's. Pardon me, must dab away the drool from the corner of my mouth. And this morning began with a stop with our friends at our favorite Chicago breakfast place, Yolk!

The fun continues tonight with YO-YO MA! Can't wait!